A professor of mine shares my experience of parenting twins, and is kind enough to allow me to unleash my pestilential questioning upon him, and even offer up words of wisdom and experience.  I don’t know if it was my awesome fatigue and rage-induced, mixed, cannibalism-metaphors that did it, but he really must have felt badly for me and my lack of sleep, and offered me the link to the “parents-of-twins” group his wife belongs to.  Apparently, this group exists only online, and those who choose to do so meet on their own time.  Great!, I thought.  That means, I can be a ghost or a shadow and never ever open my mouth or have to exist in “real-time” 3D!  Whooooo!  Nobody will have anything spilled on them, and I don’t have to pretend that I like everyone or care about what they are saying, or have to feel badly when my allergic reaction to “stupid” manifests. 

He explained: “It is extremely helpful.  We have found them an invaluable source of information.  You have to be admitted by the group leader, but it’s really just jumping through some hoops.  They have you respond to an email address, telling them a little about yourself, and that you indeed have twins–you know, it just keeps out the Riff-Raff.” 

It isn’t that I am not completely competent to be inside of a group.  Parties are fine, now.  Though, I have terrible memories of them, starting with childhood parties that kids were guilted into inviting me to.  The guilty invites were later followed by the nerd parties/”rejection parties,” or boyfriend invites that produced the teenage self esteem/mind-raping horror of someone looking me over, and asking, “Who brought their mother?” 

Growing up has helped, in that, I no longer attend children’s/teenager’s parties…and can deal somewhat more reasonably with the adult set.  That makes it sound as though that was a recent change, doesn’t it?  Oops.  I can deal, but I get tired of playing the game.  Emotionally, I get stressed out, and develop some strange faux-Brit-like accent and use words I would never use in conversation.  Plainly, I make myself stranger/weirder than I already am, as well as more aware of my all-too visible strangeness, and then I become nervous, and well, accidents start to happen, or I have a drink and say something a little more audible than I maybe should have.  So, all I really needed to say was, “me and groups=no.”

But this was different, this was a webgroup…where I could hide behind my text, so…

I filled out the boxes that asked pretty much nothing.  It appeared that they just wanted an email address they could verify, and a brief description of me and mine.  So, hoops, I jumped ‘em.  They didn’t seem all that difficult.  I explained that I am the mother of 15-month old twins, looking for other parents to talk to so I may divine what manner of terrible things they are going to unleash next.  Procrastination accomplished, I returned to to my essay.

I handed over my final paper, read “Arcadia,” began reading His Dark Materials  (the title is from Milton, how could I even pretend to resist?!) and did lots of other things, without ever considering that webgroup again.  On Friday, I had a lovely email from my professor, with excellent words about my final essay (which, though not coming to a bookstore near you, with his help willbe coming to a Literary or some other sort of scholarly journal before year’s end! And, if he can convince me, maybe it will appear at a conference…If I can gussy up for that again). 

The next message in my inbox came from someone unknown to me, a certain, “Network54support.”  I was at first confused…and then I saw the word “twins,” and realized it was the webgroup.  I opened the email and this is how it reads:

 Your membership request in the group ‘Raising Twins Approved Members’ has been
denied by the group owner.

http://www.network54.com/Group/139500

————————-
A Service of Network54.com
http://network54.com/

I don’t think I have laughed so hard in quite some time.  I am the Riff-Raff that they are keeping out!  I always had an inkling of a suspicion that I was, but until now, I could never be certain.  I really laughed at the hilarity of the situation and the email, until the absurdity of it all really sunk in, and then I almost cried.  
 

Riff-Raff Mother Pru.